A Late Springtime. By Lily Perks. (Fisher Unwin.)—There is really
very little to be said about this story which it would be at all worth while to say. Mrs. or Miss Perks is evidently a cultivated and refined woman, and these are days in which it is very difficult to discover a woman of cultivation and refinement who has not either written a novel or thought of writing one. Unfortunately, while education, interest in literature, and the power to write with some measure of ease and correctness, are much commoner than of old,the qualities which go to the making of a good novel have not become equally common; and we must regretfully say that we see no signs of their presence here. There is no material for a "slating" review—that is, if the rtviewer be moderately courteous and honest—for from positive literary vices the book is entirely free. The complaint is that positive literary virtues are also absent, that the matter is con- ventional, the style tame, the whole being somewhat flat and entirely ordinary. The story is the kind of story that has been told again and again, and it gains nothing of freshness in its latest setting. One is not roused to anger by agreeable common- place, but praise must be reserved for something else.
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